Bryan Fazio, who just turned 26, is practically bouncing around his Irvine home, moving from computer to couch to kitchen, a strapping 6-footer in polo shirt and shorts who acts like a young adult on an energy-drink high.

He prints out a letter from a doctor at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego.

In the May 20 communication, Dr. Alden Chiu urges accelerated death benefits for Fazio, who has been diagnosed with incurable recurrent Hodgkin's lymphoma – a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the immune system.

“His life expectancy is less than nine months,” Chiu writes.

Fazio, who actually was told he had that much time to live back in February, putting his supposed last day sometime around Thanksgiving, flashes a grin.

“How many people can say they've received such a letter?” he asks.

Perhaps he'll include it in his résumé.

It's a good day for Fazio, who recently resumed his third round of chemotherapy. He still has hair; he feels good.

But soon, he knows, that may change.

The graduate of Concordia University in Irvine was diagnosed in February, 2010, just as he was about to be deployed with his Naval shipmates on the USS McClusky.

The diagnosis derailed his planned Naval career, resulting in a medical retirement with full benefits and an honorable discharge.

So Fazio turned to Plan B, enrolling in the MBA program at Brandman University in Irvine.

Despite being told that he permanently resides on death's doorstep, Fazio remains focused on one thing:

Completing his studies.

Just a few classes short of doing so, Fazio was allowed, in May, to walk with his class at commencement.

Hopped up on a daily regimen of about 30 pills and a morphine patch under his right arm, Fazio recently resumed cracking the books (classes started July 1) to finish two courses. If all goes well, he will complete his studies in August and earn his MBA with an emphasis in organizational leadership.

So instead of lounging on a beach in Maui or taking in the majestic sites of Europe, Fazio is spending the bulk of his alleged last days studying.

“The doctors could be right,” he says, “but it doesn't matter if they are right. What matters is the quality of my life, and how I live it.”

It started with chest pain.

Fazio, who had no previous medical condition and whose family has no history of cancer, had plans to be a Navy JAG lawyer when his health went south.

He had completed boot camp and had just finished Operation Specialist School when he started having chest pains during his Navy workouts. Fazio, a petty officer third class, also was sleeping a lot.

In February 2010, after several tests, doctors found a 15-centimeter tumor in the center of Fazio's chest, launching him into chemotherapy treatment for Stage II Hodgkin's lymphoma.

His mother, Sheryl Silver, 55, who has raised Fazio and his younger brother, David, mostly as a single parent, began taking time off work to care for him.

Five months into Fazio's cancer treatment, Silver was terminated from the IT job she'd held for 14 years at Corinthian Colleges Inc. That dismissal is a focus of ongoing litigation that Silver says is the country's first legal test of military caregiver provisions under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.

A district court dismissed the lawsuit, but Silver is fighting it on appeal. The matter remains before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Fazio is big on the serenity prayer.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

He especially relied on the prayer during a self-bone marrow transplant in September 2011.

When Fazio needed a second transplant, David, his 22-year-old brother, turned out to be a perfect match, a fact that probably saved Fazio's life in the spring of 2012, when David donated bone marrow.

Early this year, Fazio's cancer returned when a vengeance. He now has six tumors in his chest, the most troublesome one behind his breastbone.

Treatment has kept him from missing only a handful of classes at Brandman, where Fazio's tenacity has inspired students and faculty.

He took extra classes so he could graduate this year.

Fazio, who grew up in Irvine and graduated from Woodbridge High School, resumed his latest round of chemo on his birthday, June 25. That night, he and his family dined at a favorite restaurant, Benihana.

Describing his decision to finish his MBA and pursue either law school or a doctorate in business, Fazio says: “If cancer wants to go 30 rounds with me, I'll go 30 rounds. ... I never know what life's going to throw at me. But I can control how I will respond to it.”

Fazio, since his diagnosis, has done some traveling. He's been to Vegas and Florida; he's taken a couple of cruises.

But his focus remains on finishing his MBA.

“School is my haven,” he says. “It takes my mind off cancer.”

Brandman has created a scholarship in Fazio's name.

“I don't want people to see me as ‘Brian the Cancer Patient,” he says. “I want people to think of me as a warrior, as someone who never gives up. As someone with integrity, with moral fiber.”

He adds:

“Each day I live life, I live it to the fullest. I just keep moving forward.

“God's the only one who knows when I'm going to go. ... I plan to live, not plan to die.”

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